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and how I'd ended up at Copenhagen Cryo. For some reason, I hadn't expected this. I'd thought she would go into hard sell mode and try to co nvince me to sign up already, pick my sperm donor, and then start the hormone treatments immediately. I found myself telling her about Niklas, about how sometimes he made me feel like the most wonderful, most essential part of his life, and other times I felt like a shadow. I told her about my relationship with Siri and Jesper, and how daunting it was to be the de facto stepmother to teenagers who seemed hell bent on hating me, no matter what I did. And how I'd woken up that morning in New York, with a void growing inside of me, and a sudden desperation to have a child of my own.
    I wasn't getting any younger. I was thirty-three. The number scared me. When I was twenty-five, I'd thought that by now I would be back in the US, or maybe in London, with a different man, perhaps. I'd never pictured myself staying in Stockholm for so long. How had that happened? How had I become one of those women who latched on to a man and didn't let go? But that was love, wasn't it? Or at least part of it? When you knew with a certainty that you could not live without the person you were with, or that you didn't want to live without him? I didn't want to live without Niklas. I just wished that parts of him—the part that psychoanalyzed me whenever I was annoyed, or the part that always took Siri and Jesper's side, even when they were wrong—would magically disappear.
    " Are you sure you want to have a family with him?" Ida's hand was on my shoulder, and it was a gentle, comforting touch. How could she have such empathy? I didn't think I had it when I was her age, but perhaps that was inherently part of who I was. I had such difficulties being empathetic. I could fake it, but I didn't always feel it.
    " I don't know," I finally admitted. "Maybe I want to have a baby on my own."
    I had never even considered this. I'd always said I would not be one of those women who would get pre gnant and become a Baby Mama. My parents had been pretty adamant in their lectures about not being the Single Black Mom, especially not the single black woman who had no intention of having a father figure for her child. I didn't want to be one of those women constantly moaning about how my man didn't help me with my kids, how I had to be the mom and the dad. But that's what I would be if I had a baby on my own. Maybe not so angry and resentful as the women I saw on TV, or as the women I often saw on the subway, but I would join their ranks. And in a way, instead of being frightened or disillusioned, it felt okay.
    How long did I sit there with Ida, rambling on about my life while she nodded and took notes? I knew she wasn't my therapist, but it was easier to tell her what was wrong with my life than the woman I saw in Stoc kholm twice a month.
    " I'm sorry I am going on like this," I said. "It's being here, away from Stockholm and from my step-kids and Niklas... do you get a lot of women like this?"
    " Occasionally. Some women come here looking for something completely different. They come to the mingles to meet the men, and they want relationships. It happens sometimes."
    " I don't want a relationship. I already have one."
    " Good, good. Well, let's focus on finding you a good donor."
    I shouldn't have stayed.
    Ida let me use one of the more comfortable rooms, where there was a touchscreen monitor set up for virtual viewing of donors and the staff impression reports of them. I probably spent an hour browsing and seeing no one who clicked for me, and then I stopped. The man in the cafe was donor DK-101 52 7315, Mads Rasmussen. Mads. His video revealed that he lived in Copenhagen, and worked as a carpenter and furniture maker. He was single. And his voice was delicious.
    I couldn't understand everything he said—my Danish wasn't very good—but he was sexy in that hipster way I'd always thought I hated. He had the most interesting